Occidental Torremolinos Playa

Our stay at Occidental Torremolinos began with a disappointing arrival experience. Due to delays at Malaga Airport, we did not arrive until around 10:00pm local time with two young, tired and hungry children. In previous hotels we have visited under similar circumstances, staff have often gone out of their way to ensure families were looked after, sometimes providing snacks or offering room service options. Unfortunately, this was not our experience here.

Rather than focusing on our immediate needs, the reception team repeatedly attempted to upsell us to a different room category. It was only after firmly declining several times that we were finally provided with our room keys.

Throughout our stay, we found the service in both the poolside and evening bars to be consistently below expectations. On several occasions, staff appeared uninterested or dismissive, with one instance where I was seemingly ignored while waiting to be served. On another occasion, I was asked to move to a different area of an otherwise empty bar before being served, and the interaction felt unnecessarily abrupt. Unfortunately, these repeated experiences left us feeling unwelcome.

It is important to recognise that the hotel itself is visually impressive. The grounds are beautifully maintained, and both the housekeeping and groundskeeping teams were consistently friendly, professional and deserving of praise. The facilities and appearance of the hotel create a positive first impression.

However, the quality of day-to-day customer service did not match the standard suggested by the hotel's surroundings. While the property itself has much to offer, our overall experience was significantly impacted by the attitude and service levels of several front-facing staff members.

Regrettably, based on our experience, I would not recommend this hotel.

We arrived around midday and didnt realise you had to take a ticket to check-in. Maybe thats our fault, but i had never seen that in other hotels we stayed in. We queued for around 30-45 mins. The receptionists had seen us queuing the whole time. When we got to the desk, we where told by the lady "You need a ticket! people are waiting". I think if she was even a little bit more polite, it would have been ok, but first impressions are a big thing and this wasnt a good start. On a positive note, we were not waiting too long after getting a ticket and our room was ready.

Room was very clean. It was the family room. Room was very very small. We have to sit our cases on the small table (nowhere else to sit them). Balcony was tiny (two seater table but realistically, you wouldnt fit two people. if you where making use of the small close airer.

On a positive. The house keeping staff were great. Really friendly and rooms were really clean.

Hotel was right across from the beach. We spent one of the days there and it was great.

Daytime entertainment was really focused on the pool at the front of the hotel. We only managed to get a lounger there one day (towards the evening). Trying to get a sunbed was a nightmare. If you didnt get up and queue in the morning, your only option was to try and find one on the grass. This was the same for the pool at the rear. We spent most of the time on the longers on the grass and you had insects flying around, mud on your feet (because of them being we coming from the pool) and ants. The pools themselves were good.

If you wanted a seat for the night entertainment, you needed to be seated around 9pm or before (start of kids disco). Lucklily, we had the kids so we were normally there at the that time.

The biggest disappointed and was really what drove me to this review was the Barcelo photography. We where approached at the pool by on the Photo reps. He told us that they take some family pics and that if you wanted to buy, it was 12 euro for the first print and if you want others, there is a discount applied. It was our last day and the photos took around 20 mins just outside the hotel. I was sick a little later in the day (headache), so my wife went down that evening to get a couple of prints. Or just grab them as digital. The girl told here it would be 380 euro for the digital photos and didnt present an option to print. My wife was really taken back by the price and felt she had to buy because the girl dealing with her mentioned it was late and we needed to get someone picked. So she hand picked 25 photos as digital download (no prints) and was charged 185 euro. Completely ridiculous price and was the very last action we had with the hotel before check out the next morning. We felt completely let down by this.